New Microphones Are Bringing Crystal-Clear Changes

Jay Mathews

The little black devices, the shape and size of small cellphones, have begun to appear in hundreds of Washington area classrooms. Hanging from the necks of elementary school teachers in Alexandria and kindergarten and first-grade teachers in Prince George's County, they might herald the most significant change in classroom technology since the computer, some predict.

They are infrared microphones, designed to raise the volume and clarity of teachers' voices above the distracting buzz of competing noises -- the hum of fluorescent lights, the rattle of air conditioning, the whispers of children and the reverberations of those sounds bouncing off concrete walls and uncarpeted floors.

"It makes it so much easier for the children but also for the teachers," said Lucretia Jackson, principal of Alexandria's Maury Elementary School, one of the first in the area to use the audio enhancement systems for all classrooms. All Alexandria elementary school teachers now have them. "They are no longer suffering from laryngitis," Jackson said. "They don't have to project their voices as much as they needed to do in the past."

Posted by Jeff Henriques at April 1, 2008 3:03 PM
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